Home cooking

It is one of life's cruel ironies that the more your health deteriorates the more housework there is to do, as you are in it more creating it. I give thanks for rallying yesterday day evening and getting supper cooked and some cleaning and tidying up done. Sorting out is a very messy business!

I give thanks for the aroma of the lentil stew fortifying me. It smells of...of...(I thought long and hard about this)...home! I don't have a sense of home as a place...or people...I've never felt safe or settled enough I guess, which is sad in a way but at least if you've never had it you can't lose it, you know? And if you've always had to look after yourself, I think maybe you learn to treasure the way you do somehow...including the stew you've been making for forty years or so! I remember a TV programme about kids in care and the presenter, who had been himself, saying to a sad teenager 'It feels like no one's there, doesn't it?' 'Well, you have to be...you have to be there for yourself' And you do!

So I give thanks that I am...and I do what I can do... and for the delicious stew, which felt like being hugged from the inside out.

I give thanks for fixing the kitchen blind (hooray!) but not the oven door (boohoo!)  I tried all the things I've tried before to make it shut (apart from lying on my back and using my legs because I know that really hurts now) ...but all I got for my pains was more pains in more places. I give thanks I woke very early as it took a long time to get them out of bed, during which time I give thanks for remembering (eventually, after a lot of self criticism) though feeble failure and fibromyalgia share some letters and characteristics they are not the same thing. Every cloud has a silver lining and being so incapacitated for so long with sciatica I'd forgotten how much the rest of my body could hurt. I give thanks for all the people who have debilitating health conditions and people to say 'Here, let me help with that!'

So...hmm...some pain in the bank balance too I guess. The original cooker was bought almost 10 years ago 'to tide me over until the kitchen is done' and is battered, indelibly stained, rusty in parts and far from efficient...so in many ways I don't mind having to replace it at all, but there's a lot of reasons why I'd not have chosen right now if it could have been avoided. However, even if I could find a way round using an oven for a while I can't show folks round a flat with a dangling oven door... Secondhand would be fine apart from the logistics, so I'm grateful I've the money to buy new and to cover delivery and fitting...and taking the old one away! For the internet to look at options on line, and that I could rearrange the things I had to do to fit in a trip to peruse the electrical shops in town here which have rubbish websites! For the strength to make the journey and a big bag of stuff to go to the charity shop so I needed a cab for at least part of it. I give thanks for the sunshine smiling on me...and hoards of other people...

I give thanks for doing very little since I got home except buying a cooker on line - not from a shop in town here, nor a big chainstore either, but an old fashioned family firm based in the north of the county (and the one next door) that I've dealt with before and know I can rely on for excellent service at a very reaonable price. They also had a cooker that I can bear to buy bearing in mind I might have to leave it behind if I move...and could bear to take with me if not! I give thanks I made enough stew for another meal, and that I'm sure I can manage just fine without garlic bread on the side...for the next week!